by Cole Porter
Rome – 2 A.M. Thursday, April 19, ’56
Dear George –
Mrs. Smith will phone you re The Observer. It’s one of those mysteries which only the oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece could have solved. My Xmas present to you was a year’s subscription to The Listener, a great English weekly.‡
Your letter of April 8th arrived. Richard§ news is always interesting news to me. Oh how, oh how, can his life be solved? Why, instead of a second-hand Cadillac, doesn’t he buy a first-hand bicycle?
As for Mark Richards, break him in. He has only that value & that value should not be wasted.
It will be a relief to leave Rome. Rome, to me, means merely a series of luncheons, dinners & balls. I can’t escape this here as all the parties are given by old friends who still think that the only song I ever wrote was Night & Day.
A letter came from [Robert] Raison. What a snob! He explained that they had moved to Schuyler Road in North Hollywood. He also wrote that like my house in Brentwood, surrounded by the lower middle-class, their new house in North Hollywood had even more distinction. It is surrounded by peasants. Poor dere Vere. It all must upset, so much, her kosher standards.
Frank Loesser’s job* in sheet music arrived. As usual, excellent lyrics & the tunes, – I believe, better.
As for Fair Lady, what wonderful work! I pine to see it.
Good night, dear George. Give the enclosed bill for 10,0000 lire to Richard. It’s worth about sixteen bucks.
My love to you & Mark
Everybody’s pal –
Cole
In Porter’s absence, Sam Stark wrote to Variety to correct an article they had printed on the composer in late March. The notion that Porter had nothing but flops in the 1940s before Kiss Me, Kate remains a common misconception:
9 April 1956: Sam Stark to Variety†
Dear VARIETY:
That was a nice tribute to Cole Porter on page 1 in your March 28th issue, however, there were a few errors. Mr. Porter really made his Broadway bow in 1915. He had a number called, “Two Big Eyes” in a show MISS INFORMATION starring Elsie Janie and Irene Bordoni, at the George M. Cohan Theatre, that opened October 15, 1915.
Reading further along in the article:
“During that time, from around 1940–48, Porter turned out a series of flops.”
That is not correct. The list below could not be called flops.
1940. Panama Hattie. 501 perf.
1941. Let’s Face It. 547 perf.
1942. Something for the Boys. 422 perf.
Most sincerely,
[signed:] Sam Stark
Stark omits the successful run of Mexican Hayride (1944) at 481 performances. Around the same time as this letter Porter sent a postcard to Stark:
18 April 1956: Cole Porter to Sam Stark91
Dear Sam – Thanks a lot for Missia [sic] Sert’s book.* I shall read it with joy on my return.
Rome lovely but too many parties. It will be a relief to get to Egypt + meet only an occasional cobra.
Love to you both
Cole
Porter’s diary continues:
16–19 April 1956: Cole Porter’s diary
Rome, hectic.
A business matter disturbed Porter in Rome:
17 April 1956: Cole Porter to Robert Montgomery92
Rome, Tues. April 17th 56
Dear Bob –
I hope you won’t ask me to do this often. It wrecked an entire morning for me when I might have been looking at Michelangelo + I have only 2 full days here. Why can’t you start a big movement to do away with, at least notaries public + all consulates?
Rome is full of sunshine + too many friends. I pine for Luxor + the peace of meeting only occasional cobras.
My best to you + to John [Wharton]
Cole.
From Cairo, Porter wrote to his masseur, Richard,93 the following comical letter:
20 April 1956: Cole Porter to Richard [?]
Dear Richard –
Why don’t you give up your faded Cadillac + buy yourself a Vespa? Rome abounds in Vespas. I’m sure you would be much happier on a Vespa than in a Cadillac for, 1) a Vespa can go just as fast as a Cadillac, 2) a Vespa makes much more noise and 3) it is infinitely more dangerous. So think of this when a rich chick wants to give you a gift.
This afternoon we fly to Egypt, our longest flight – six hours.
On your Easter card you wrote “Letter will follow.” If you still have a complex about writing the English language, dictate to one of George [Eells]’s secretaries. I want your news.
My best to your family + to you. Thank Heaven I’m leaving Rome. My Italian masseur is much too violent. Perhaps he is too young.
C.P.
20 April 1956: Cole Porter’s diary
Seven-hour flight to Cairo and Mena House.
21 April 1956
Saturday. Cairo. Pyramids, Sphinx, Mosque of Sultan Hassan, Mosque of Mohammad Ali (all alabaster).
22 April 1956
Sunday. Memphis and its lying-down Colossus. Sakkara, the great underground tombs of the sacred bulls, the step pyramid earlier than all.
23 April 1956
The Cairo Museum, the early Egypt, the middle and the late – the late beginning with Akhenaton, then to Tutankhamen and incredible loot from Tutankhamen’s tomb in Luxor, discovered in 1922 by Carnarvon and Howard Carter. Everything in top condition and of extreme beauty.
24 April 1956
For dinner, a beautiful tent in the desert, under the full moon. We looked at the pyramids from the opposite side and the light on them was enchanting. After dinner, an Arab orchestra, two belly dancers, two male Sudanese comedians, and a beautiful Arabian horse, the only horse I have ever seen who could dance, even without his rider, in perfect tempo. On the way home, the usual stop to look at the Sphinx who has been there watching for five thousand years.
25 April 1956
Back to the Museum.
25 April 1956: Postcard of the Sphinx from Cole Porter to Sam Stark94
Still won’t talk.
Love
Cole
27 April 1956: Cole Porter’s diary
Friday. By plane to Beirut, Lebanon. Hotel Excelsior, excellent. Beirut beautiful and as against Cairo, not even one fly.
29 April 1956
Sunday. Drove to Byblos and saw ruins of so many civilizations, unluckily not beautiful. Up through magnificent country to a sad little patch of Lebanon cedars, some of them very old. The night in Tripoli, a run-down town. The hotel a remnant of Turkish domination. Terrible cozy corners but bang-up food.
30 April 1956
To the Krak des Chevaliers, a magnificent fortress originally built by the Kurds and later enlarged to become the finest example of what the crusaders could build. It is on top of a mountain and looks like a big walled city. Once inside, one goes up and up on a rather wide road designed for horsemen, until finally the summit.
I was carried up and then down by Paul [Sylvain], the Lebanese guide, and the two chauffeurs. They were exhausted and I felt sorry for them. But the Krak (Turkish for fortress) is one of the world’s greatest wonders.
On to Baalbek and the charming Hotel Palmyra, with its delightful patron and patroness.
1 May 1956
Tuesday. In the morning to the most beautiful Roman ruins, the Temple of Jupiter with its very high columns, the Temple of Bacchus, on a smaller scale but nearly complete. Great restoration is being done here. A glimpse at the Temple of Venus, very little left. On to Damascus, seeing only the new city, to the Hotel Omayyad.
2 May 1956
Damascus. St Paul’s window from which he escaped, Ananias’s* house, underground (now a chapel), where he hid before his escape. (This Ananias was not the liar.) The Azzim Palace, a fine example of eighteenth-century aristocratic living, Saladin’s tomb, the huge Omayyad Mosque, and the souks (bazaars) for miles and miles, so colorful. For a finish, the lovely Tequiha Mosque.
3 May 1956
; Lunch at Amman in Jordan. On the way, women working on the road in constantly different costume. It seems that each village has its own costume. Camels grazing and many of them. Sheep in huge flocks and beautiful black goats. Bedouin tents scattered on the hillsides. The Allenby bridge over the little, muddy, fast-flowing Jordan. We passed the Mount of Temptation where Satan tempted Christ, also the Inn of the Good Samaritan. We stopped at Jericho, a lovely oasis and then the beautiful Dead Sea, with its Mount Nebo looking at us, where Moses was buried and Joshua took over and brought the Jews back to the Promised Land. All these stories of the Old and the New Testaments, what with two excellent guides, bring back my days in Sunday School when they were such good stories. Being here, they are even more, they are very moving. Jerusalem Friday.
4 May 1956
Jerusalem. Mount of Olives (ascension), Pater Noster church where Christ gave Lord’s prayer to disciples for second time. Garden of Gethsemane, Church of Agony with its rock where Christ prayed, High Priest Caiaphas’ house, where he and scribes decided to have Christ crucified and to spare Barabas and where Peter denied Christ. Underneath, prison where Christ was put. Pretorium of the Romans, Ecce Homo gate where Pilate showed Christ to populace. Ecce Homo house where Christ was mocked, scourged, and given crown of thorns. The Via Dolorosa to Church of Holy Sepulchre near Calvary, in a sedan chair.
5 May 1956
By chartered DC3 to Ma’an, drive in cars to a police station where horses and donkeys are waiting to take us to Petra. Finally to a great gorge, very high and very narrow where, after a long ride, suddenly everything opened and we were in a vast mysterious city carved out of solid rock and the rock multicolored. It was originally built by the Nabateans, enlarged by the Hellenistic Greeks, and elaborated by the Romans. There is a Roman aqueduct from the beginning of the gorge to the city, and in the city, a big Roman theatre (where did they get the actors?), on every side lovely palaces, temples, and tombs, carved in the solid rock; and even up in the mountains above, all of these becoming more colored by the setting sun. We each had a text. A good dinner, to which I invited Miss Kirk-Bride, an English archaeologist who is digging here and has found arrows, etc., from the Stone Age. After diner, Bedouin singers and dancers. Then to Miss Kirk-Bride’s big cave where she has been living for months. She has her own stove, a cook, a maid, and many books.
6 May 1956
Sunday. After lunch, back to Jerusalem and on the way, constant evidences of the Arab League, of whom many are British, the whole outfit formed and still trained by the British. They wear British uniforms, very smart, but Arab headdresses (the caipha or scarf and the egal or double cord to keep the caipha on). We all wore these headdresses, beginning with our ride to Petra. They are most practical in the desert as they can be adjusted in any number of ways to protect one against the wind, cold, heat, dust, and flies.
7 May 1956
Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity. The extraordinary thing about this “Holy Land” is not the spots, as most of the spots are mere conjecture. The moving part of it all is the Christians who have come from the entire world to worship.
8 May 1956
Plane to Beirut. Most of the plane occupied by very old Greek Orthodox peasants returning to their homes in Australia after having visited Jerusalem to pray. Two of them could barely walk. They all must have spent their life savings for this pilgrimage.
9 May 1956
Arrive Istanbul and Horrible Hilton. Outrageous invasion of press and photographers.*
10 May 1956
St. Sophia, Blue Mosque, Suleiman Mosque, former sultans’ palace, to see jewels (fabulous and hideous).
11 May 1956
A drive to the Black Sea along the Bosphorus. One villa after another, each one more repulsive than the other, but the Bosphorus beautiful, looking very much like the Hudson. Back to the palace of the sultans, to see a huge collection of porcelain, most of it very valuable and very ugly. To the seven walls, to see the prison where people’s heads were cut off and dropped in a hole to float or sink in the Sea of Marmora.
12 May 1956
Athens, bless it, and the charming Grande-Bretagne.
Back in Athens, Porter wrote to George Eells of his journey:
12 May 1956: Cole Porter to George Eells95
Dear George,
Thanks a lot for your letter dated May 1st.
Our trip through the Near, or if you prefer, the Middle East was continually another Arabian Night, mostly in the day-time.
The hotels everywhere were charming. Then we hit Istanbul + the Istanbul Hilton. This is an interesting hotel in that it has probably the most breathtaking site of any hotel in the world. It is wonderfully planned + beautifully built + it is the God-damnedest worst hotel on this Earth.
I can’t tell you what a joy it is to be in Athens again + this excellent Grande Bretagne. (Hotels are important to tourists.)
On Monday, the 14th, we start our cruise on the beautiful [Stavros] Niarchos yacht to see islands of which I have dreamed for years.
I hit N.Y. on June 5th. Please warn Richard* I have written him to phone me but he easily may have forgotten where I live.
The show news in N.Y. is very exciting. I shudder when I read about Shangri-La† + The Ziegfeld Follies‡ + I can’t wait to see My Fair Lady + Frank Loesser’s [The Most] Happy Fella.
I shall ring you when I arrive to “date” you. It will be a joy to see you.
Best
Cole
His diaries continued:
13 May 1956: Cole Porter’s diary
Dined with Spiros Harocopos* in his beautiful apartment, the walls lined with fine Byzantine ikons. Among the guests, Paxinou,† the actress.
15 May 1956
Tuesday. Lunch aboard Eros; same charming crew. First stop, Hydra, a peaceful island. Visited late Byzantine church with lovely ikons.
16 May 1956
Parso, famous for marble quarries. Visited eleventh-century church, Byzantine, full of charming, simple carvings on varied marbles. At sunset, passed Naxos.
17 May 1956
Cos (or Kos). The fortress of the Crusaders, facing the east of Turkey, the huge plane tree under which Hippocrates is supposed to have first taught hygiene and curing (don’t believe it). Hippocrates was born in Cos; the Asclepieion, the first spa in history, supposedly founded by Hippocrates, recently very restored by the Greek government.
In the evening, after a beautiful sail, arrived Patmos and its enchanting harbor.
18 May 1956
Friday. Patmos. We were taken in a truck by a terrifying road to a mountaintop to the Monastery of St. John the Divine, founded in the eleventh century. An old monk suddenly spoke to me in good English. He had been born on Patmos, went to the U.S.A., hated the bustle so much that he had come back here and had become a monk in a monastery “to find God and Eternal Peace.” On the way down, to St. John’s cave, where he lived after having been exiled from Rome by Domitian and where he wrote the Revelation.
19 May 1956
Samos. A drive to vast ruin of Temple of Hera, facing nearby coast of Turkey. Temple made of blue Samion marble, one huge column left standing.
In the evening, we arrive Chios, a sheltered harbor. Most of our crew comes from Chios. The captain’s wife and two daughters, our chief steward, Niko’s wife, daughter, and mother come aboard. These women are all beautiful, still retaining the widely separated eyes, the fine noses, and the small mouths of the classic Greek sculptures. We all drink and have hors d’oeuvres together, smiling and not being able to exchange one word.
20 May 1956
By car and then by donkey to Nea Moni (New Monastery), eleventh century, to see fine Byzantine mosaics comparable to those of Osias Lukas* and Daphne. Our departure from monastery (now a nunnery) delayed by Mother Superior who gave us a fig liqueur and loukoum made of rose petals. Both great. Lunch in a lovely spot under big plane trees. Later, dinner by the sea, and a terrible orchestra, but always top food.
All th
ese people on the islands are alike in their simplicity, their dignity, and their happiness.
21 May 1956
Lesbos (Mytilene). A drive through mountainous but very fertile country to Ayassos, where ugly church contains beautiful small ikons, some of them resembling Persian miniatures.
22 May 1956
Thasos (looking like the mountains of New Hampshire). We had a private bus to see ruins of 450 B.C. city and the museum containing a strange archaic statue of Apollo, practically Egyptian. Also beautiful horses’ heads and a sculpture of Venus without her upper half riding a delightful dolphin. Thasos honey was brought aboard, the most powerful honey in Greece. Many bees on deck though we were moored far from the shore. Slightly to the north, the coast of Macedonia.†
23 May 1956
Mt. Athos. We skirted the southern and the western coasts all morning looking through binoculars at numerous monasteries, some on the shore, others high on the mountainside. These monasteries are so big they look like villages; some of them are occupied by Greek monks, others by Bulgarian, Russian, or Serbian monks. Many monks, however, prefer to live in groups of two or three while the most ascetic of all live completely alone in caves or eagles’ nests.
After lunch we first visited Dochiarion monastery near the shore. The interior of the church is entirely painted in the eleventh-century Byzantine style, though done in the sixteenth century. Beautiful. We met several monks, all old except one young man named Innocent who, in spite of his mustache and beard and long hair, looked like Audrey Hepburn.
Farther along the coast, Monastery of Dionysiou high on a cliff. Service was going on in the dusk of the church here, the monks all sitting in choir stalls around the edges and those participating in the service wearing black veils. Each monk seemed to be chanting a different chant, the whole effect nearly terrifying. After service, we were taken into a small sitting room to be given anisette, loukoum, and coffee, while an old monk who had spent eight years in the U.S.A. talked to us in fluent broken English about Atlanta, Georgia; Houston “good town,” Texas; New York City (“too cold”); Chicago (“too cold”), and Los Angeles (“warm”). What he liked best in the U.S.A. was the Automat.